Learning to Fight, Learning to Heal

Like everybody else, Unity and Struggle members have grappled with how to address abuse and patriarchal behavior in our society, and in left organizations including our own. We don’t have easy answers, but we’ve found it helpful to study the nature of abuse under capitalism and different responses to it. Below is the syllabus for an abuse study that some U&S members and friends are currently test-driving in several cities, based on interest. We hope other groups will take up the reading list, adapt it to their needs, and use it to craft responses to abuse in our movement and lives.

UPDATE 6/5/2016: We’ve added a few more discussion questions to this study guide, to reflect some of the themes that came up as we finished reading everything.

Sit El Banat, stencil tribute to the women who were beaten, dragged and stamped on by military forces in December 2011. Image from SuzeInTheCity

Explore implications of this critique for politics of consent and sex. What would alternative framework have to take into account?

While West critiques liberal notions of consent, she also critiques the “all sex is rape” view. Summarize her critique, and why she doesn’t want to erase the distinction between consensual / non-consensual entirely.

Summarize Federici’s argument regarding place of gender relations in development of capitalism. Compare / contrast this account with other (incl. orthodox Marxist-Leninist) accounts

How, in Federici’s view, did social divisions such as gender enable the creation of a proletariat, and how do these divisions help perpetuate the proletarian condition? Discuss the implications of Federici’s view for class struggle and revolution.

What is the second wave feminist understanding of “sex-right?”How does Miriam adapt and update this idea?

How might this understanding of sex-right combine with an objective understanding of the social relations of capitalism that Federici, Grant, and James lay out?

3. Individual and collective responses to abuse

Objectives: (1) Develop familiarity with history of U.S. feminist anti-violence movement; (2) Identify how professional definitions of abuse, trauma, recovery are incorporated in contemporary left; (3) Identify strengths / weaknesses of current left’s approach to abuse;

Revisit the ten pitfalls of accountability processes they highlight. How are these pitfalls generated by the conditions of life under capitalism? What might make these pitfalls more or less prominent in different types of communities or contexts?

The “transformative justice” perspective has some popularity in the left. What individual, collective, or social factors might affect whether an individual or community would be able to transform itself in the ways the perspective aims at?

The zine offers men’s groups as one possible direction for accountability work. What might be the potentials and pitfalls of this strategy?

Summarize the “primary, secondary, tertiary” prevention typology the zine borrows from the NGO world. Are these categories useful? How do the four directions the zine lays out fit into these categories?

Summarize the critiques of accountability processes put forward in the “Theory” section and the key concepts the authors put forward, such as mediation, community, hiding power exchange, triangulating, resonance, and whatever else jumps out at you.

Many of the theory pieces criticize accountability processes for mediating survivor autonomy (e.g, limiting survivors’ responses to fit the needs of an imagined community), and they turn to retaliatory violence as an unmediated form of action. Explore this juxtaposition more. How might collective retaliatory violence also be “mediated”? Is all mediation alienation (in other words, does all mediation involve giving up our capacity for action)? If not, how do you tell the difference?

Summarize the activities in the “Practice” section, and connect them back to the “Theory” section. How are ideas in the theory section put in action in the practice section? Could they be enacted differently? To the extent that you’re familiar with these kinds of practices, have they raised any further problems or questions to be explored?

The practice pieces include documents about not only physically attacking abusers, but also also groups (e.g. fascists) and institutions (e.g. newspaper offices) known to engage in or condone abuse. What are the theoretical warrants for these actions in the “Theory” section? How do the authors believe these actions will help overcome the limits of accountability processes?

One of the critiques of accountability processes is their tendency to reify categories like survivor, perpetrator, fucked up, or safe space, which are thought to be absolute and mutually exclusive. How does this refication happen? How do the actions in the practice section address this problem?

Summation Questions

What is the relationship between patriarchy and the capitalist mode of production? How does abuse arise in this overall system of relationships?

What different forms can abuse take, and how are they perceived by those involved and those outside?

What are the best ways to stop abuse, help survivors heal and move forward, and compel abusers to transform themselves? How might all these easier or harder, depending on the social and cultural context?

What kinds of responses to abuse are necessary and appropriate in our group, given our purpose and mission? What kinds of responses are possible, given our size and capacity? Do these change depending on the situation (in an incident between two members, a member and a non-member, or two non-members in our broader milieu)?

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